Breakaway basketball goal release structures have become increasingly popular over the past decades and are believed to provide several benefits to the users of this type of equipment. Benefits include reduced damage to basketball backboard members, improved player safety, reduced stress on the backboard support structure, and adds to the excitement of the game of basketball and related dunking activities.
In the past, there have been numerous attempts to design and develop basketball goal release systems to provide the benefits as described above. Though these attempts have achieved varying degrees of success and/or acceptance, they are nonetheless subject to certain drawbacks. These drawbacks relate to location and geometry of component parts, cost of manufacturing, susceptibility of such parts to damage and wear, and difficulty of service and maintenance.
To date, there are two basic categories of breakaway rims being marketed. They are “positive locking rims” and “non-positive locking rims”. Positive locking rims are designed to hold their position until an external force that is placed on a basketball rim reaches a level that will trip the basketball rim loose and allow it to pivot downward. This action relieves lever arm forces on the basketball rim that are being applied to a basketball backboard member and the support structure up to a point that basketball rim rotation is stopped. Non-positive locking rims are simpler structures whereupon, as more external force is applied to a basketball rim, more downward travel in the basketball rim will result. This increase in basketball rotation results in additional force being placed on the backboard and support structure with the maximum force being applied as rotation is stopped.
The advantage to a “positive locking rim” is that it can be set not to release until a preset level of force is applied to the basketball rim. Generally, this type of basketball rim will hold more closely to normal ball rebound characteristics of a standard non-movable basketball rim. “Non-positive locking rims” will generally not hold a normal rebound of a standard non-movable basketball rim unless the holding mechanism is tightened up to a point that basketball rim rotation is virtually eliminated. Of the two basic categories, the “positive locking rim” design is considered to be of higher quality.
Most “positive locking rims” use a detent or latch mechanism that secures the basketball rim in the playing position. The amount of force required to release the basketball rim from the playing positions is usually controlled by spring pressure placed upon a pin or ball that fits into a detent. Although this has been an accepted method for holding the basketball rim in a solid fixed position until an overload force is applied, this system is generally associated with a high degree of friction.
Unless all of the components in this system are in some way hardened so as to prevent wear, this detent or latch type of locking system has a tendency to lose the ability to hold a constant release setting. Therefore, constant maintenance is required on this type “positive locking rims” to ensure that they maintain acceptable levels of performance.
A more recent type of “positive locking” mechanism that has been invented is the breakover arm system and a system of this nature is found in Mahoney et al U.S. Pat. No. 5,318,289 issued Jun. 7, 1994. In this patent, a breakover actuator assembly consisting of breakover arm members which pivotally connected to each other and provides support to a basketball rim assembly with spring type pressure holding the breakover arm members in place. This system eliminates the wear associated with a latch or detent but is subject to considerable wear at the pivot points in the upper and lower breakover arm members and other pivot locations.